Otis Redding wrote and first recorded “Respect” in 1965, two years before Aretha Franklin transformed it into her signature hit. Redding’s original appeared as a single and on his album Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul.
Redding’s version was a driving soul performance written from a man’s perspective. Its narrator asks for respect when he comes home after working and earning money. The song became a crossover success, reaching the top five on Billboard’s Black Singles chart and the pop Top 40.
Aretha Franklin recorded her radically reworked version on February 14, 1967. With help from her sisters Erma and Carolyn, she flipped the song’s viewpoint, added the spelled-out “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” refrain and “TCB” backing vocal, and used a sharper, more confrontational arrangement. Her version became an anthem associated with women’s rights and the civil-rights era.
A common mix-up is to treat Franklin as the songwriter because her recording is far more famous. She was the performer who reinvented the song; the original composition and first recording belong to Redding.